The Hemophilia Aid Program has just touched down the first batch of treatments in its target developing countries, as part of a 10-year commitment from US Biogen (Massachusetts) and Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (SOBI) from Stockholm via the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH)’s AID project. The relief effort pledges to ship over 1 billion units of anti-Hemophilia treatments to developing countries to tackle the estimated 300,000 people who do not have access to such medicine.

Much of the Hemophilia Aid Program is contributed to by WHF and Hemophilia for Georgia (another NGO – based in the US as opposed to Canada), which receive clotting factor treatment donations from a range of global sources, including Hemophilia treatment centres (HTCs) and product manufactures such as Swedish Sobi and US Biogen. Started up in 1996, it is by far the largest humanitarian effort to address the rare clotting disease, which is known to affect around 400,000 worldwide (300,000 of which are in the developing world).

The donations are used to treat hemophiliacs for emergency bleeds, (e.g. in the case of accidents or surgery), as a prophylactic for children to reduce the development of hemophilia-related disabilities (Joint damage and disfigurement caused by bleeding into joint-spaces), reduce the associated pain and to try and prevent early-death from hemorrhaging.

It is really encouraging to see such a move away from secular research by EU biotechs and NGO’s alike, who are globally uniting to tackle this life-threatening rare disease.

“We regard healthcare innovation as a global commitment. By helping to address the global treatment gap and supporting the WFH’s mission of treatment for all, we hope to enable meaningful change for people with hemophilia across the world,” said Geoffrey McDonough (president and CEO of Sobi).

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